


i didn't know (i'd love you)

by thecanary



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/F, First Dates, Kissing, coming out but not rlly, declaration of love mb, identical to my previous fic for all intents and purposes, romance peaked w these two cheers, set after a fractured inheritance in my mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 14:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16620665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecanary/pseuds/thecanary
Summary: sadie gave me a prompt identical to a fic i'd already written but i commit to the bit and i did it so cheerseleanor and tahani kissing after a coffee date that they didnt realise was that at the timekudos if u know th song i snatched th title from





	i didn't know (i'd love you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Suzanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzanna/gifts).



“It’s as though she just, doesn’t see me as her kid anymore?” Eleanor mused, ripping up sugar packets at her table. Yeah, her endeavors toward being a good person were at least slightly hampered by seeing her mom.   
“I understand you. I found my parents rarely saw me as a child, and more as a tool, or someone to just compete with my sister. Never my own person.”  
“Kinda the opposite then,” Eleanor said, her laugh hardly a genuine one. Not mocking, just bitter. “My mom never wanted me to be a part of her life properly. I was always just there, until I wasn’t, and she seemed glad for it. She introduced me as a sorority sister of all things. It’s like? Does she even care that I found her?”

Sure, Eleanor had talked through most of her issues with Michael, but bitching with Tahani over coffee wasn’t an offer she was ever going to turn down. Well, spending any meaningful amount of time with Tahani, especially away from the rest of the soul squad, regardless of how much they meant to her, that was an offer she couldn’t refuse. 

Tahani shrugged, putting a sympathetic - beautiful - hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. 

“Sometimes things have to sort themselves out, or it can’t just be one person reaching out,” she reasoned. “Maybe someday your mum will want to make peace with you, but you can’t try and force it, it won’t turn out a result either of you want.”  
“I guess you’re right. You tend to be.”

That earned a laugh from Tahani; she lifted her hand from Eleanor’s shoulder to muffle it slightly, although Eleanor didn’t even know if she herself was kidding or not. She legitimately did find that Tahani was right most of the time, or at least that Tahani always had a good line of reasoning that she came from. It was unlike most people Eleanor had had in her life up to date. Up to date including Chidi, though his socially awkward tendencies meant that while he could be right in theory, he rarely followed through in the way that Tahani was willing to do. 

“You are Tahani. You’re right all the time in such a good way. Like, say what you will about us being ‘destined for the bad place’ or whatever, but I refuse to take you as anything other than a good person. Especially now, like, fuck man, trying to resolve all that with your sister, no bad person would do that,” Eleanor rambled. 

It only earned her a slight odd glance from someone behind them in the coffee shop, but probably mainly from her frazzled tone and how she knocked her mug with her hand as she spoke animatedly, having to scramble in order for it to not roll off the table. Tahani flinched as Eleanor did so, only untensing her shoulders once the mug was safely settled back on the saucer. No need to upset the waitstaff by ruining their crockery and forcing them to completely clean up the floor. 

“I suppose that could be true. I mean, of course I want her on the right track for everything, but I suppose I wasn’t even looking at my actions in the good bad dichotomy anymore. I mean, does it really matter for us? I mean, as long as we let other people do good, is that it for us?”

Eleanor gave a low hum, nodding her head and raising her eyebrows slightly. 

“It does make you wonder. But you have to stop at a point, else you just end up having a bit of a nihilistic crisis, I mean, Chidi bore the brunt of one of those pretty badly.”

It was Eleanor this time who had to stifle a laugh, not wanting to outright make fun of one of her closest friends, although they had discussed it between them since it had happened. Tahani gave a knowing nod, her face betraying her slightly as a smile quirked her lips up - she had been trying to act as neutral as possible to any joke making fun of someone outright. 

“One can’t help but wonder though, that’s all I meant, though you do make a compelling point to the contrary,” Tahani said.   
“Being contrary.” Eleanor gave a thumbs up. “That’s me in a nutshell.  
“And if I were to take a leaf out of your book?”  
“You starting to be argumentative? Like me, in that ‘obnoxious American’ way? Something I’d love to see.”

Both of them paused, unable to follow that line of absurdism down too much further, though Eleanor was aware the threat - if you could call it that - was still in the air. You probably couldn’t call it a threat, in all honesty - a promise maybe, a jest, depends how joking Tahani had been being. 

“Can I ask you something?” Tahani asked, her voice more hesitance than English accent.   
“Fire away, gorgeous.”  
“At the risk of sounding, uncouth, or something like that, are you and Chidi, ‘a thing’?”

The words ‘a thing’ sounded foreign coming from Tahani’s mouth, especially given that she somehow managed to inflect the quotation marks without illustrating them in the air with her fingers. Eleanor’s pause and failure to react was easy for Tahani to interpret weirdly, which she obviously did. 

“I mean, I do know he had a relationship with Simone, but after he broke up with her, and the two of you are very close, I just thought something might have happened?”

Eleanor finally managed to unfreeze her brain, trying to think of the classiest way to ask if that line of questioning meant that Tahani might be open to considering this conversation over coffee could be considered a date. 

“Nothing really happened between us, don’t worry.”

‘Don’t worry’? Eleanor immediately internally criticised; what the hell would Tahani have to worry about this. 

“That’s, well, I guess that’s a relief.”  
“Oh?”  
“Yes. I mean, if you were in a relationship with Chidi, or anyone really, I probably wouldn’t get away with doing this.”

And before Eleanor had properly processed what Tahani was saying, Tahani had leaned forward and kissed Eleanor. Eleanor only hesitated a moment before kissing her back. Now, in the past Eleanor had never been a fan of PDA, but, it was really mainly other people’s that she complained about, and now she had a chance to inflict that on everyone else - well some part of her still had that need to annoy people, and if she could do it while kissing Tahani, why the hell wouldn’t she. Once the two broke apart, Tahani was slightly flustered. 

“That was more impulsive than most decisions I make,” Tahani said.   
“I’m not complaining.”   
“I was hoping that would be the case.”


End file.
